Gentry
by Manic Penguin
Summary: An investigation in San Diego proves to be quite revealing. Please read the AN in the first chapter for more details.
1. Chapter 1

_This is a story that I have been working on for quite a while and have finally convinced myself to post it. The version found below is the edited version, meaning that the smutty parts have been taken out so that this fic meets ratingsstandards and regulations._

_The complete version can be found in the crossover fiction secotionon my web site:_

_http/ a chapter of a portion of a chapter comes up that has been cut for this site I will post a note at the start of the chapter along with a link-esk thing that you can copy and paste if you wish to read the full story, smut and all._

* * *

_This is a crossover between JAG and the X-Files, though I'm mostly just borrowing Scully, Mulder, and Bill Scully for what is really a JAG fic._

_This story is definitely Harm/Meg, right from the beginning. There are hints of Harm/Scully (in the past), and some strains of Mulder/Scully, but, as this is written in First Person POV from Meg Austin's eyes, there isn't much beyond Harm/Meg._

* * *

It wasn't often that the pilots hung with the senior staff on or off a carrier and it was even less common for a couple of JAG lawyers to join them in their celebration—JAG is treated a lot like the Internal Affairs Bureau in civilian PD—but one thing that I've had learned over the course of my life, especially in recent years, is that the unexpected often happened when you expected things to go as normal.

Of course, it didn't hurt that the Skipper of the carrier that was currently in port was an old friend of my partner and that he and Bill had pretty much grown up together.

Or the fact that the JAG lawyers were none other than my partner, Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb Jr and myself.

I didn't like Bill, felt he was condescending and basically a jackass, and I know Harm agreed with me on that. Bill was old-school Navy, despite being raised in the new military where a woman is just as good as a man. But Harm and Bill were old friends and the JAG investigation had wrapped up early that morning, unfortunately ten minutes _after_ the daily transport left the ship, so we were stuck there until morning. I would have normally just gone my room at the VOQ and blocked out the chauvinistic comments from the seaman who, it seemed, believed that women belonged in the home and not on aircraft carriers or even around a base. And I really wanted to just go to the room I was assigned when we arrived and to hide behind battleship gray walls until morning. But I knew that, when Harm got around old friends he tended to either piss them off royally or talk his way into the cockpit of an F-14. Neither option appealed to me one bit.

I _hate_ it when he flies in those things.

I hate it even more when he starts drinking.

The scotch had gotten too pricey two hours before and the beer had been brought out of hiding moments later.

Harm was fighting hard, but he was keeping up with the other sailors drink for drink. Knowing Harm as well as I do, I knew that he didn't drink much, usually just some wine with dinner or a beer or two while watching a game at a friend's place—he didn't own a TV, though he did use mine quite often, especially during baseball season—and I honestly hated the fact that my highly warranted _I told you so_ the next morning would be drowned out by the helo's blades, but, hey, that the hangover should be punishment enough.

All I can say is that it was a good thing Harm didn't get airsick.

"You don' havta hang out here if you don' wanna, Meg," Harm said when he noticed that I was checking my watch again.

"Someone's gotta get you back to your bunk in one piece," I said, not caring that he was my superior officer. The moment his drink count passed three he became just another drunk sailor in the Officer's Club. "Knowing you, you'd probably try to get into a Tomcat to run some traps before bed."

"_Mmmmeeegggg_," Harm whined, "you know I don' fly at night," he said with a deep, pouty frown.

"I don't think that was her point, buddy," Bill said, draping a drunken arm over my shoulders. I immediately pushed him off. The stench of alcohol on his breath was too much after the day I'd had. I probably would have felt a little better if he was drunk, too, but the man seemed to be able to hold his liquor. I was feeling slightly drunk just from all the alcoholic smells in the air, and Bill had downed god knows how much.

Damn him.

Harm frowned for a moment, his brow furrowing adorably, then he realized what I mean and he shot me a glare. It's been a while since I'd seen him good and drunk and I'd forgotten how he couldn't discern sarcasm from honesty in his inebriated state.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw an attractive waitress heading over to the room the officers of the _USS Titon _had commandeered. She was clearly intent on taking more orders, hoping for a bigger tip or maybe a few minutes alone with a sailor that'd been away from home for too long to remember the kind of lovin that comes from someone other than their own hand, and I knew that it was time to get Harm out of there while he was still somewhat functioning and alone in his bed for the next four hours.

"Okay, Flyboy, time for you to start sleeping this off," I said, motioning for Harm to get to his feet.

"Yes ma'am," Harm said, sounding like a little boy being told to do to bed by his mother. If he weren't so deep into pink elephant territory I probably would have hauled off on him for acting like I was his mother. If he were any more intoxicated I probably would have called his mother.

Which reminds me that we've been within an hour's drive of his mother and stepfather for over a week and he hasn't so much as called her to say '_hey mom, I'm on your side of the country at the moment, wanna come down to the base for dinner?_' like he usually does when we're in the SoCal region.

Crossing a base at night is usually not so bad, especially the bigger bases. They're well lit, streets are clearly marked, and the BOQ is usually close to the O Club for obvious reasons. Crossing a base at night with a drunken sailor who is at least a foot taller than you and is leaning heavily on you while singing some random country tune about a lost woman or possibly a piece of sugar free gum—he's slurring too much for me to be sure—is not fun.

"Harm, where's your key?" I asked when we came up on the beginning of the rows of motel-like housing for unmarried visiting officers.

Patting down his pockets sloppily, Harm kept singing. He ran out of pockets, though, and stopped. "Dunno," he said with a frown.

And then he started to fade.

As a rule I don't pick locks, especially on bases. Uncle Ollie taught me how when I was little because I kept losing the keys to the house whenever I went riding. It's much easier to make sure you have a bobby pin in your hair than to make sure you have a set of keys in your pocket. But, since we were on a base and the Public Relations Officer had promised a personal wake-up call at 0600, I figured it wouldn't be wise to let Harm crash in my room. There are already enough rumors flying around about our relationship and whether or not we're 'screwin'. I'm sure his key is in his coat pocket, it usually is, but I don't bother checking because, once again, the last thing we need is someone going around saying that I was groping my partner outside the Bachelor Officer's Quarters in the middle of the night.

I settle Harm against the wall, praying that he stays standing long enough for me to do this, and I crouch down low to pick the lock. It's an old one, and relatively easy to pick, but I'm nervous and I keep looking up to check on Harm every few seconds.

Within a minute I'm in and I helped Harm over to the bed. He flopped down, cover and all, and I took his cover off, tugged his shoes and coat off, and lifted his legs up onto the bed. It was too hot to bother with covers, so I didn't worry about trying to get them out from under his body.

"Don' go," Harm said in a whiny voice, reaching out as I turned to leave.

"Harm, you know I can't stay," I said softly. I knelt down so I was at his eye level and I stroked his hair soothingly.

"I know," he said sadly. "Wish you could, though," he added, his eyes meeting mine for a long moment before his body shut down and he passed out.

"Me too, Harm," I whispered as I leaned in to place a tender kiss on his forehead. I quickly made sure that he wouldn't fall out of bed and I moved the garbage can closer to the bed, just in case, and then I left, more than a little reluctantly.

* * *

Even though the transport wasn't due to leave for another two hours, I was dressed and packed shortly after six. The base PRO had come by my room at 0600 on the dot and I'd managed to convince him to get me to spare key to Harm's room after explaining that he would be very hung over and was not known for being too friendly early in the morning anyway. Apparently the young Public Relations Officer didn't have a death wish and was all too willing to leave my partner in my hands. 

Of course, he didn't leave without giving me an envelope.

The contents?

A fax from Admiral Chegwidden stating that we would have to take civilian transportation back to Washington since we had missed the transport the day before we were supposed to go out on and that we would be paying our way home.

That means he's had another fight with Sydney.

Of course, that also means that I have to sit next to Harm on a 747 or whatever we end up on and watch him wish he were up in the cockpit rather than leaving the flying of the 'friendly skies' to a couple of air force drop outs.

And, to top it off, he'll be hung over.

My day just keeps getting worse and worse.

Using the key provided by the PRO, I let myself in and found Harm in basically the same position as I left him a little over four hours ago. He's lying on his side, his left arm thrown over his eyes, his right arm dangling off the side of the bed with his fingertips brushing the dusty floor. The bathroom light is on, though, so I know he's moved at least as far as to the toilet and back, which is a comfort, albeit a small one.

Putting the large water bottle and the bag of bagels I'd brought with me down on the dresser, I took a calming breath before going to wake Harm.

"Hey, Flyboy, time to get up," I said gently as I wiggled his shoulder a little. Harm is always such a bear in the mornings, and, though the thought of bringing a Marine in to sound off with his trumpet is alluring, I know that my life will be much easier if Harm is awakened slowly and gently. "Come on, Harm, we're going home soon, and they might let you fly," I said, though I knew the Navy had no intention of letting him fly. Hell, _I_ had no intention of letting him fly. He grumbled something unintelligible and pulled his shoulder away from my fingers.

"Go away," Harm mumbled, swatting blindly at me.

"No can do, Harm. We've gotta go," I said while tugging on his arm. I was about two failed attempts away from dousing him with ice water. "Come on, Harm. If you don't get up I'll have to call the Admiral and explain why we're not on our way back… and you know that he'll probably put you on desk duty for a few months until he's forgiven you… long hours sitting in the office, no chances to fly, forced to eat from vending machines… I know you won't be able to stand it. And I really don't want to have to break in a new partner now that I've finally got you right where I want you."

Harm frowned and lifted his head a little, his aqua coloured eyes meeting mine. "And where would that be?" he asked in what would have probably been a seductive tone if he didn't sound like he'd spent the night digging in the desert with his mouth.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," I replied with a smile. "Now get up. I've got water and bagels and some news that you may or may not like, depending on how your savings account looks right now."

Harm groaned. "I don't think I want to know," he said before rolling out of bed and stumbling toward the bathroom, grabbing the bottle of water along the way.

I stayed where I was until I heard the shower start up and then I started packing up Harm's things, leaving him one civilian outfit to wear on the way home. I was dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans and a light sweater instead of my uniform because flying across the country in uniforms is not the most comfortable thing in the world and, since we're going to be taking civilian transport, we won't stand out in civvies, which is always a plus.

Plus Harm looks mouthwateringly good in civvies.

True, his uniform is just as sexy, and don't even get me started about him in dress whites, but when Harm wears jeans and a tee shirt and he steps out of the 'officer and a gentleman' cliché role that he lives ninety percent of his life by, there's something so seductive about him that it makes my head spin.

After I'd tidied up I wrote out a note and left it on top of the neatly folded clothes I'd left on the foot of the bed for Harm. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to hear me over the water and the pounding in his head, I left the room silently and headed for the mess hall where I'd asked Harm to meet me.

I'd just sat down with my food when Harm came through the door. He got in line and got his own breakfast and then came over and joined me.

"How're you feeling now?" I asked tentatively.

"Headachy, but otherwise functional," Harm said. "What's with the civvies?"

"The Admiral is pissed we missed the transport yesterday so we're flying civilian," I explained. "On our own dime."

Harm groaned. "Great," he muttered before tentatively tasting what passed for oatmeal. It passed muster, it seemed, because he kept eating it.

"So I was thinking that after breakfast we'd head out. There's a flight leaving at noon that we might be able to get on if we're lucky," I said, fighting a frown as Bill headed in our direction.

"Yeah, sure," Harm said dismissively.

His attention was elsewhere.

Craning my neck to see what had caught his attention, I spotted a beautiful redheaded woman standing next to a gorgeous man who was the definition of the sexy 'tall, dark, handsome, and brooding' type. Both we wearing dark suits, and neither carried themselves like military, which was puzzling.

What was even more puzzling was the fury that came over Bill's face when he saw the pair.

Dropping his tray onto the nearest surface, Bill made a beeline for the suited couple who were speaking to a young Ensign. Harm tensed up and swore under his breath before jumping to his feet and hurrying after Bill. Not wanting to leave him without backup, I followed Harm.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Bill demanded of the man, poking him in his Armani-clad chest.

"Damn it, Bill, cut it out," the redhead snapped, grabbing Bill's wrist and pulling it away from the man. Bill isn't a small man but the woman's grip seemed enough to hold him off for the moment. I was impressed and intrigued. "We're here on assignment. We were just asking the Ensign where we could find Admiral Jakobs."

Bill turned to the Ensign who didn't back down under the murderous glare he was getting. I reminded myself to commend the Ensign later. "I was just telling the Agents that Admiral Jakobs will probably be arriving at his office before 0700, sir," he said, his voice strong and steady.

"There are no little gray men on this base, Mulder," Bill said, turning his fury back on the suited man. Agent Mulder, my mind filled in. CIA, maybe. Possibly NCIS, though I felt that wasn't quite right. FBI seemed likely. The little gray men comment threw me, though.

"We're on the tail of a serial rapist, Bill," the man, Mulder, said. "This isn't an X-File. We're on loan to Violent Crimes."

Ah, so it was FBI. I'd heard of the X-Files. A two-person department hidden away in the basement of the Hoover Building. Investigations into the paranormal. The Bureau didn't like advertising the department, but I've got some friends there who have lips that could sink ships.

"Why are you looking for Admiral Jakobs?" Harm asked.

The woman stood up a little straighter. "Harmon Rabb?" she asked, a slight frown coming over her soft features.

Harm nodded.

Mulder and I frowned.

Bill turned and walked away, frustrated that no one was paying attention to his righteous indignation riff.

"Scully?" Mulder asked his partner.

"Um, sorry," the woman, Scully, said, shaking her head after breaking eye contact with Harm. "Mulder, this is Harmon Rabb, Jr. We grew up together. He's a Naval fighter pilot. Harm, this is my partner, Fox Mulder."

"Nice to meet you," Harm said, shaking Mulder's hand. "And I don't get up much anymore. I'm actually with JAG now." I cleared my throat slightly. "Oh, and this my partner, Meg Austin. Meg, this is Dana Scully. Bill's baby sister."

Scully lined Harm up with an icy glare that would have stopped Admiral Chegwidden cold.

"Bill's _younger_ sister," Harm amended quickly. I smiled. "What happened to the whole 'med school' plan?" he asked Scully.

"I went to med school. I just decided that I could help more people at the FBI than I could becoming a GP," Scully said. "When did law school happen, though? I thought you would be commanding your own squadron by now."

Harm chuckled softly. "Yeah, so did I. Unfortunately the Navy doesn't like it when their pilots can't fly at night," he said.

"Night blindness," Dana said with a thoughtful look on her face. "That explains _so_ much," she said with a pointed look. Harm blushed. My curiosity soared.

Mulder motioned for me to follow him and I did, knowing that we wouldn't be missed. "You getting the feeling that we're not getting the whole story?" he asked me once we were a safe distance away from Harm and Scully.

"Definitely," I nodded. "And I'm also guessing that there's not exactly a warm and fuzzy relationship between you and Bill."

"That would be an understatement," Mulder said with a lopsided smile. He looked over at our partners and then he looked back at me. "Any clue where I could find Admiral Jakobs? I've got the feeling they're gonna be traveling down Memory Lane for a while and we've already pissed off the SAC and our AD today."

"How industrious of you," I said before motioning for him to follow me.

"Hey, I piss more people off by noon that you probably will in a lifetime," Mulder said.

"You've obviously never seen me in a courtroom," I replied.

Cognizant of the fact that I was wandering around a naval base in civvies, I made a quick detour and changed into my last remaining summer-whites uniform, grabbing my cover before heading back out with Agent Mulder loping along beside me.

"So… the whole X-Files thing isn't a myth?" I asked lamely. Mulder shot me a confused look. "Sorry. I have some friends at the Bureau and they've mentioned some cases… I believe they called them 'insane'."

"Insane is one of the terms commonly used, yes," Mulder nodded. He didn't seem at all phased by this. "Who do you know?"

"Amanda Peters and Thomas Royle," I said.

"Violent crimes," Mulder nodded. "I know them. Worked a case with them last month. They're good agents."

We walked in silence for another minute before Mulder spoke again.

"Do you believe in the existence of extra terrestrials, Miss Austin?"

"Meg," I corrected. I hate being called 'Miss'. If people are going to be formal with me I prefer that they use my rank. "And I believe that it's possible that there are more things in the universe than is generally accepted. I don't know exactly what is out there, but I believe that we're not as 'alone' as everyone thinks."

Mulder held his hands over his heart. "I think I may love you, Meg Austin."

I rolled my eyes and laughed.

We had just reached the building where Jakobs' office is housed when my cell phone started ringing. I uttered a quick apology and then turned away to answer it. "Lieutenant Commander Austin," I said.

It was Admiral Chegwidden. "Did you get my fax this morning, Commander?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, I got your fax."

"Then you understand that you and Commander Rabb are a day late both in returning to Washington and turning in your final report on the investigation."

I cringed. I knew there was something I was supposed to have done before I went to bed last night. The report was saved to my hard drive, waiting to be e-mailed to the Admiral. "Yes, I understand that we are a day late.

"And you realize that you once again went over your budgetary limitations."

I cringed again. We'd been given this case to try to keep our budget in line. Unfortunately circumstances got away from us yet again. "Yes, I realize that we went over budget again."

"Is Rabb there?"

"No, Commander Rabb is not with me at the moment."

"Tell him that you two are to stay in San Diego for another investigation. This came right from the top, Commander."

"Yes, sir. I'll be sure to pass that along, sir," I said somewhat reluctantly. The last few cases we've received that have come 'right from the top' have not gone well.

"I've already sent the files you will need to get started. The courier should arrive by 1200 your time. I expect a report by 1900," Admiral Chegwidden said. I cringed again. That didn't give us much time to go over everything. So either there wasn't much to the case—which wouldn't make sense if it came right from the top—or the timetable was incredibly tight. Another bad omen.

"Yes, I'll be waiting for the files to arrive, sir. You'll have a preliminary report by 1900."

"Tell Rabb that there are to be no heroics this time. You'll be working in conjunction with outside agencies. Let them do the dirty work. You two are only there to ensure that the Navy's best interest is represented," Chegwidden said.

"Yes sir. I'll be sure to tell Commander Rabb you said so, sir," I said. I was starting to get a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. "If you don't mind my asking, sir, what outside agencies will we be working with?"

"I don't know," Chegwidden said honestly. "I expect daily updates on the progress of the investigation."

"Of course, sir," I said.

"That's all, Commander," Chegwidden said.

"Aye, aye, sir," I said, standing a little straighter—not completely at attention but close enough. Some habits are hard to break.

Admiral Chegwidden hung up and I sighed heavily. I'd been looking forward to getting home.

So much for those plans.

"Bad news?" Mulder asked as I turned around.

"Depends on your point of view," I replied nonchalantly.

"And what's your point of view?" Mulder asked casually.

I felt like screaming in frustration. "Look, Agent Mulder, I've heard about you. You were Patterson's surrogate son, the golden boy of the BSU. It's probably instinct for you to profile everyone you meet. That's fine. If you're gonna profile me, I'm not gonna stop you. But I just found out that I'm going to miss my godson's birthday because I'm going to be here. I promised him that I would be home for his party. I've never broken a promise to him before." I looked at the time and sighed. "Admiral Jakobs office is at the end of the hall, past the bullpen, second door on the left after the copy machine. Think you can find your way back to the mess hall after you're done here?"

"Photographic memory," Mulder said, tapping his temple.

"Handy," I commented bitterly.

Mulder sighed softly in frustration. "Look, I'm sorry if I've offending you in some way—that was not my intention," Mulder stated delicately. It was clear he wasn't used to apologizing for his less-than-tactful actions. "I just… find you intriguing."

"Like a specimen under a microscope?" I frowned.

"Microscopes are my partner's thing," Mulder replied. "I deal in human emotions. Human nature."

"And I intrigue you?" I asked, still frowning. "What exactly am I supposed to make of that?"

Mulder shrugged.

"You are incredibly frustrating, you know that?" I said.

"It's been intimated more than once," Mulder said casually. "Second door after the copy machine?" he asked, nodding his head toward the bullpen.

"Just let the Petty Officer know why you're here and you should be okay," I nodded. Mulder executed a sloppy salute that made me cringe and then he turned on his heel and headed inside as I turned and started to head back to the mess hall in hopes of finding Harm.

_TBC..._


	2. Chapter 2

_I forgot to post a disclaimer in the last chapter. I don't like surfing and I have absolutely no desire to have Tom Sellek run around in shirt-shorts for several seasons. That proves that I am not CC nor am I DP, and I have no rights of ownership to anything that I did not create in my own slightly neurotic mind._

_Oh, and myweb addressdidn't show up in the last chapter's lead-in, but I believe it is posted in my profile. Please come by and check it out. Especially if you want to read the more... 'mature' chapters of this fic, starting with Chapter Three which should be coming out in a few days if all goes well._

_Please let me know what you think._

* * *

I was just passing the BOQ when I heard Harm calling out my name. He was coming out of his room, dressed in his uniform and placing his cover on his head with one hand while locking his door with the other. Scully was standing with him, a small smile on her rosy lips.

"Where'd you run off to?" Harm asked as I headed over to him and the good doctor.

"Agent Mulder said he didn't want to piss off the Admiral so I was showing him where to go," I said. "Chegwidden called. We're staying here to assist on some mystery case. Courier's coming at 1200 with the details."

"Yeah, Harriet called to tell me," Harm said.

"I'd… um, I'd better go. Mulder has a tendency to enrage military personnel," Scully said apologetically, looking at me with a questioning glance. I shook my head slightly to indicate that he hadn't done anything to piss me off and she relaxed a little. "Which way to the Admiral's office?"

Harm gave her directions and Scully nodded, smiling at him fondly and rising up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek before heading off to join her partner.

Arching an eyebrow at him, I waited for Harm to explain.

It took a minute, but he caved.

He _always_ did.

"Dana and I met when I was about fifteen. She was about twelve, all pigtails and freckles, barely four feet tall when I was pushing six. Her father was a Commander at that time and this was after mom married Frank but before he bought the house in La Jolla, so we were still living in base housing. The Scully family moved in next door. Dana's dad was on carrier duty and wasn't around much, but Bill seemed to enjoy that 'cause he got to be _the man of the house_."

"I never would have guessed," I said, rolling my eyes. We were wandering toward the small office we had been given for the duration of our investigation, not in any hurry because we had a few hours to kill before we even found out what our next assignment was.

"Yeah, I know," Harm laughed. "Bill was a few years older than me. He sort of adopted me as a younger brother, pulling me into the Scully family. Then he went off to the Academy and left me in charge of everything. Melissa, the oldest daughter, was my age and mom and Maggie—Mrs. Scully—used to tease us about how we were going to end up together."

"Did you ever date?" I inquired.

"Me and Melissa? No," Harm said. "She was… I guess you could call her the black sheep of the family. She wasn't anti-military, but she didn't believe in the Navy like the rest of her family did. Sometime between when I left for Vietnam and when I came back she started getting into alternate religions, going what her dad called 'Californian' on us. She wore crystals and prayed to a goddess. We sort of drifted apart from there on out."

"How many kids were there?" I asked. I knew Harm had always wanted siblings and that he'd never had the chance. He was constantly wondering why his mother and Frank never tried to have children after they got married. Biologically speaking it would have been possible, and, from what I've learned about Harm's mother and stepfather, they both adore children.

"Four. Bill, Melissa, Dana, then the baby of the family, Charlie. He's about five years younger than me and I never really spent much time with him. I spent most of my time with Dana. And, before you ask, yes, we did date. In my senior year, after I got back from Laos," Harm said. "It ended when I went off to college. Dana was very practical about it, citing the percentages for long distance relationships and how my future in the Navy and her future in medicine would end up tearing us apart anyway. I didn't want to lose her as a friend, and I knew that would happen if we continued dating while on opposite sides of the country. It was easier to lose my girlfriend than the first person I had really been able to open up to after my dad went MIA."

I reached out and trailed my hand down his arm. Talking about his father still hurt, even after he found out the truth. Harm smiled softly and took a large step so he could open the door for me. His little gentlemanly traits like that used to bother me, they used to make me feel like he was trying to treat me like the little woman who couldn't even open a door for herself, but I quickly learned that it's just another part of who Harmon Rabb Jr is.

"Mom and Frank moved to La Jolla not long after I left for college and I made new friends and Dana made new friends and our friendship sort of fizzled out," Harm continued. "The last time I spoke to her was the day I started the Academy. I needed one of her patented pep talks complete with the infallible logic she's known for."

"Is it weird, seeing her again?" I asked. I'd run into ex's before and, even if I was completely over them, there was always a certain level of weirdness that hovered over the encounters.

"A little," Harm admitted as he unlocked the office door. "But not the way you're thinking," he added once we were safely inside where no one could see us.

"And what, pray tell, do you think I'm thinking?" I asked, tilting my head to one side and looking up at Harm playfully.

Harm reached out and caressed my cheek with his calloused hand. "There is nothing between me and Dana, Meg. I've got my sights on one woman, and her hair isn't red."

I shifted nervously. Since arriving in San Diego we hadn't had any time alone together and his hand on my skin was making me feel hot and incredibly woozy. "Harm, someone could come in," I said softly, my protest weak even to my own ears.

"Let them. Half the Navy already assumes we're together anyway, and the other half doesn't care either way," Harm said. He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine. "I hate hiding this. I want to be with you without looking over my shoulder to make sure no one sees us. I want to hold you in my arms at night and make you breakfast in the morning. I want to kiss you whenever I feel like it. I want to see my ring sparkling on your finger."

"I wear it at home," I said, the weight of the diamond engagement ring that I wore on a chain around my neck suddenly becoming much greater. Harm looked incredibly hurt and I hated myself for being the cause of the pain in his eyes. "Harm, you know I want to go to the top of the tallest building and announce to the everyone who will listen that the most amazing man in the world asked me to marry him. I want to stop talking about moving in together and to just do it. I want to go shopping with the intention of buying a wedding dress, not just for an excuse to look through bridal store windows. But until we talk to the Admiral we can't announce our relationship. We owe it to him."

"I know," Harm said softly. He rested his forehead against mine and moved his hand from my cheek up to tangle itself in my hair. "I've missed you," he said tenderly. His lips found mine and I couldn't fight it even if I wanted to. His tongue slipped past my lips and I was gone, lost in the haze that always came over me when Harmon Rabb kissed me.

"You know, if we wanted to we could go off base for the evening. Have dinner. Go dancing. We haven't done that in a while," Harm suggested, his fingers toying with my hair the way he liked to when he planned on seducing me. I was so close to jumping him that his seduction was more likely to make me come than make me horny, but I appreciated the effort.

"The investigation," I protested weakly. "We don't even know what it is," I said, even though I wanted more than anything to take Harm up on his offer and forget about everything for at least a few hours.

Harm leaned down and dropped tantalizing kisses up and down my neck, his teeth nipping at my skin and his tongue smoothing over the area before moving on. I was coming apart in his arms and he knew it.

Pushing him away so that I could look into his eyes I offered a compromise in hopes that we could avoid prosecution for having sex on duty. "How about we wait for the files to come and after we know what we're dealing with we decide whether we go out for dinner and dancing or if we're going to have to find a way for you to sneak into my room tonight because if I have to go much longer without being with you I might go insane," I said. Then, before he could go all 'cocky Flyboy' on me, I pressed my fingers to his lips. "If you're a good boy I might just wear that red lace thing you like," I said. There was no point in letting him know that I already had it on under my uniform.

Harm's eyes lit up and I could feel him hardening even further against my belly. I removed my fingers from his lips and smiled coyly as I pressed myself against him shamelessly.

It took all my willpower to keep from pushing him down on the desk and having my way with him right there and then. The knowledge that I could easily push down his pants and boxers, hike up my skirt and rip off my panties, and have him inside me within a minute made me weak in the knees.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Bill chose that moment to act as our personal cold shower. He pounded on the door with his fist and called out to Harm, telling him that he knew he was in there.

We reluctantly separated and Harm sat down behind the desk to hide his arousal while I went to unlock the door.

"Bill, calm down," I said, knowing that it wouldn't do anything but needing to at least try to get the man to breathe before his head exploded all over my last clean uniform.

I don't even think he heard me, though, as he pushed past me and looked directly at Harm like he was the only hope for the future. "Get her away from him," Bill demanded.

"Who? Dana? Bill, you know as well as I do that once Dana makes her mind up about something there's no changing it. And she seems pretty happy where she is now," Harm said.

"You don't know him, Harm. He's crazy," Bill said.

"Agent Mulder seemed perfectly sane when we spoke earlier," I said, feeling the need to defend Mulder even if it was only because Bill seemed to hate the man so much.

"He thinks there are little gray men running around," Bill said.

"So does half the country," I replied. There was no point in saying that I wasn't completely adverse to the theory that there's more out in the universe than NASA has found.

"Half the country doesn't spend the government's money to hunt down these aliens," Bill replied acerbically. He turned back to Harm. "Look, I may not have liked it when you were screwing my baby sister, but you are a hell of a lot better for her than Spooky Mulder. I don't care what you have to do for or to Dana to get her away from him. Fuck her six ways from Sunday if you have to, but get Dana away from that freak," Bill said.

"I'm going to go check on those files," I said, needing to get away from Bill before I did something that would probably be detrimental to my career and would almost certainly ruin my manicure.

Harm, however, took my need to leave differently. "Meg, stay," he said, his voice filled with desperation. I paused and Harm turned his attention to Bill once he was sure I wasn't going to bolt. "Bill, not only am I _not_ going to try to break up whatever Dana and her partner have, but I'm also not going to let you do anything that might cause Dana any kind of pain. Now, if you'll excuse us, Meg and I were in the middle of something when you decided to revert to caveman status."

"No, really, we're good where we left things, _sir_," I said, emphasizing the _sir_. "I'm going to go get those files. The results of our discussion hinge on what is in there, anyway." My need to get out of there no longer stopped at my growing desire to hit Bill Scully. "You two obviously have a lot of stuff to talk about."

"Meg," Harm pleaded. It was clear that he thought I was upset with him.

"Really, Harm, we're good. I'll talk to you later. You take care of… this," I said, waving my hand vaguely in the direction of Bill, "and then you and I can deal with our aforementioned decision."

I flashed him a smile and then left, closing the door and pretending I didn't hear Bill beginning a second plea for Harm to sleep with Dana.

It was still a little early for the files to have arrived so I spent a little time wandering around and watching the planes taking off and landing again. It wasn't the same without Harm's usual running commentary and critique of each pass, but, then again, everything seemed to be different when Harm was around.

Reaching under the collar of my shirt I pulled out the white-gold chain that held my most beloved possession. My engagement ring. The band was slim and plain with a beautiful diamond perched regally on top and a pair of wings etched inside. We had already bought the wedding rings, mine matching the engagement band and Harm's being a simple gold band. Inside my wedding band was the inscription HARMON and inside Harm's was MEGAN. Even though it was usually supposed to be a surprise Harm and I had decided that enough things in our lives were uncertain and that we didn't want our marriage to become one of those things, too. Our wedding bands were in Sarah Rabb's safety deposit box up in Pennsylvania because we had gone to the jeweler there and the rings hadn't been ready by the time we had to fly back to DC. We were supposed to go back up there to pick them up a few weeks later when we both had a three day weekend but we had been sent to San Diego and hadn't left the West Coast since.

I unhooked the chain and let the ring slip off into my palm. Since Harm had given it to me three months earlier on a weekend trip to his grandmother's farm the ring had spent more time hanging around my neck than it had on my finger. And, while just knowing that Harmon Rabb Jr loved me and wanted me to be his wife was enough, sometimes I would have liked to have people gush over my ring like they did over Harriet's after Bud proposed to her.

We had talked about how and when we were going to 'come out' in out own special way, and we had yet to come to a decision other than the fact that we had to tell the Admiral first. Even though we still weren't sure how to tell him that we'd been lying to him for over a year and breaking one of the cardinal rules at in the military and, specifically, at JAG by 'fraternizing', Harm and I had instantly agreed that he needed to be the first to know. Or, second, really, since it had been impossible to hide our engagement from Harm's grandmother since she had walked out onto the porch only moment's after Harm had got down on one knee in the front garden.

An elongated shadow blocked the sun and made me snap my hand shut around the ring. "Deep thoughts, Commander?"

"Something like that," I replied, not entirely eager to speak to the woman who was standing behind me. "And I help you with something, Agent Scully?"

"I got the impression that you were none too pleased to see me with Harm before," Scully said. "And I honestly cannot understand why."

"I'm very protective of my partner, ma'am," I replied, the ring in my palm digging into my skin.

Scully sat down next to me. "I understand that. Believe me, I do. But what I don't understand is why you felt you needed to protect him from me."

"Let's just say that Commander Rabb has an issue with tunnel vision sometimes and it tends to get him in trouble."

"I have no intention of hurting Harm in any way," Scully said gently.

"I'm not sure if I believe you, but I'm more worried about your brother's actions than yours right now," I said honestly.

Scully laughed. It was low and throaty, like her voice, and I could tell she wasn't used to laughing much. "Bill is hard to figure out," she agreed. "But he's more likely to hurt Mulder than anyone else. I honestly didn't think Bill would be in port when we got here. If I knew he was on base I would have sent someone else to negotiate with the Admiral."

"How is the Navy involved in your case, anyway? If you don't mind my asking," I said.

"There's a really tenuous connection that I'm not even sure I understand. I think it's mostly because of the horny sailor stereotype that the Navy's developed that the thought Miramar even entered into the profile," Scully said. "And, lucky me, I get to be the one to tell a two-star who knew my father and called me _'little britches'_ when I introduced myself today that one of his guys might be a serial rapist that the FBI called out it's star profiler to track down. Sometimes I really hate that my family history is included in my personnel file. Just because I grew up around sailors doesn't mean I want to be here."

There was so much bitterness in her voice that I felt the urge to move away from her, but I didn't.

"Not exactly the trip to Sea World people assume you're making when you say you're going to San Diego, huh?" I said more than somewhat sympathetically.

Scully smiled a tiny smile and then turned to watch a pair of F-14's taking off. "It still terrifies me when I see those things," she said. "Thinking Harm might be in the cockpit… I think him being a pilot is part of why I hate flying."

"If it makes you feel any better the only thing he flies right now is his Stearman, and even that he doesn't get up in the air all that much anymore," I said. Memories of flights with Harm in 'Sarah' brought a smile to my lips and my fingers tightened around the ring. I was itching to slip it on my finger and let people assume whatever they wanted to but it wasn't just my decision to make and I did want Harm to be on board with whatever I did regarding our relationship. "Of course that doesn't stop him from wanting to be catapulted off a carrier deck like that," I added as another pair of Tomcats headed off into the wide expanse of blue sky that was both their playground and office space.

"Nothing would," Scully said softly.

I had to agree with her on that one.

We were silent for a minute and then Scully spoke again. "How long after I left to find Mulder did Bill track you guys down?" she asked.

"Excuse me?"

"I know Bill and I know he thinks he's trying to protect me from the horrors that he thinks Mulder inflicts upon me, and I'm positive that he would go to Harm. I just want to know how much damage my brother has done."

I smiled softly. "It took him about twenty minutes," I said before relaying an edited version of the part of the conversation I had witnessed. "I could tell it was making Harm uncomfortable, talking about all that with me there, and I was about two seconds away from attacking Bill and risking a Court Marshall so I left them alone and came out here. But it's not like Harm's going to do anything. For one he's not going to take orders from Bill. Not to mention that Harm obviously has a great respect for you. And neither one of us has seen Mulder do anything to you, good, bad, or indifferent, so as far as I'm concerned it's none of our business."

Scully took a full two minutes to determine whether I was being genuine or if I was just trying to tell her what she evidently wanted to hear. I could tell that Dana Scully had a lot of trust issues and, if even half the stories I'd heard about the exploits of the agents of the X-Files, I could easily understand why.

"Thank you," she said at length. Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her shoulder bag and answered it with a slightly clipped, "Scully." The other person spoke for a minute and then she sighed softly. "You're sure? How long ago? Okay, do you have the chief medical examiner's office number handy? Good. I'll give him a call and make the arrangements. I don't want this to turn into some local-federal turf war, especially since you haven't had any written complains against you sent in to Skinner in at least two months. If you keep up this good behavior we might actually get heat in the office in time for winter this year. I'm taking the car so you'll have to find a cab if you need to leave the base, okay? Good. And try to stay away from Bill. Bye, Mulder," Scully said, a smile on her lips. I recognized that smile. I wear it every time Harm says something cute. Scully turned to me. "I have to go. Our serial rapist just escalated to murder."

I nodded and pulled out a card from the clip in the back of my notepad. "Harm and I are probably going to be in town for a while. The extension for the office is on the back. We should all go get dinner one night… if there's time, I mean."

"I'd like that," Scully said, tucking the card into her day planner. "Um… you wouldn't happen to know if Harm's mother still lives in the area, would you?" she asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I'd like to see her. It's been a long time."

"Trish and Frank moved to La Jolla a few years after they got married," I replied. I gave her the address and phone number of both the house and the gallery from memory, averting my eyes from her questioning gaze as she wrote the information down. "But if you could wait until the morning to call her, that'd be great. Harm's gonna be in enough trouble when Trish finds out that he's been here for as long as we have without calling her."

Scully nodded and offered up a half-smile before taking her leave. I stayed where I was, watching the familiar rush and protocol that comes with life on a base, for another half an hour before getting up and heading to the Public Affairs office to see if the files had arrived. They had, and I lugged the two document boxes across the base and down to our loaner office, hoping that Bill would be gone by the time I got there.

Harm was just coming out of the office when I got there and he took one of the boxes from me without a word. We put them down in the office and I closed the door and looked at Harm. "So, where'd you hide the body?" I asked. "Let me guess. In an empty tube attached to the missile rails on an F-14."

"Cute," Harm said. I smiled in return. "So, where'd you go?" he asked.

"I watched flight ops for a while," I said. "Wasn't the same without your commentary, but at least I didn't have to worry about you being the one wearing a F-14 like a pair of pantyhose."

Smiling, Harm opened one of the boxes. It was full of files. I hadn't expected anything else, but it was something else altogether to actually see the stack that was part one of two.

_TBC..._


	3. Chapter 3

The sheets fluttered like pale blue ghosts, the Egyptian cotton being lifted by the hot air that the oscillating fan was pushing around the room. Harm was sitting at the table wearing a pair of boxers holding a glass of ice water to his forehead as I lay on the floor wearing a lightweight silk nightie that would have been too embarrassing for me to wear were it not for the heat and the fact that the only witness to my scantily-clad form had taken me up against the wall less than an hour earlier.

* * *

"Why didn't we drive two blocks further to the place with air conditioning?" Harm whined.

"Because you said that you grew up in San Diego and could take the heat," I said with a self-satisfied grin. It was hot, sure, but I was much better at handing the heat than Harm was. I got up off the floor and moved over to his chair, curling up in his lap. "Why don't we get in that big empty bed over there... I promise the heat will be the last thing on your mind," I said with an innocent smile.

Harm tried to keep a straight face but he couldn't manage to do it for more than a minute before he caved and started laughing. He gathered me up and carried me over to the bed while chuckling and I smiled against his neck, whispering delicious things that I wanted to do to him in his ear.

We wrestled around on the bed for a few minutes before slowly undressing each other and making love again, slowly and tenderly this time, taking time to run our fingers over each other's flesh and kiss every inch of skin we could find. After we had both calmed down we curled up together and drifted off to sleep, savoring the time in each other's arms. We both knew this alone time would be rare in the coming days and weeks.

* * *

Screaming for help but knowing that she was only wasting her breath and tiring her lungs out with her cries when she needed all her lung power for flight, the young woman ran through the park that she had walked through every day both on her way to and on her way from work. She had always felt safe there, the swing sets and teeter-totters bringing about an innocence to the park while the soccer field and the basketball court tended to draw a slightly older and largely male demographic–one that she and her friends had been known to scope out from time to time on the weekends or after work if they had the time.

But the cute and sweaty guys were gone for the night and the wide-eyed children were long since tucked away in their beds, and all that she knew was that the man that was chasing her wasn't someone she wanted to let anywhere near her.

Her heels sunk into the earth, making each step even more difficult. She was regretting the fact that she had declined her co-worker's offer of a ride home. She had thought that he was just trying to con her into stopping for dinner with him, then maybe a movie, then to her place where he would clumsily 'make his move' while she tried to think of a way to get out of there without ruining their working relationship with something as fleeting as sex.

She would have gladly taken her grabby co-worker who wouldn't go any further than she let him over running as fast as she could through a park with some unknown, shadowy man chasing her, gaining on her, and reports of a serial rapist in the area making her even more aware of just how vulnerable she could be.

The heel of her left pump got stuck in a patch of sucking mud by the water fountain that was perpetually overflowing and she tugged her foot out of it, abandoning her right shoe on the next step, and she continued running, the fact that she was ruining her pair of pantyhose without any runs in them the farthest thought from her mind.

In high school she had played volleyball, preferring short bursts of motion and more focus on hand-eye co-ordination than long distance running. Now she did yoga and swam laps at the gym on sporadic weekends.

She was regretting letting her membership lapse three months earlier.

Almost to the side of the park near her apartment, she put on a burst of speed, hoping that her pursuer wouldn't continue chasing her once she got to the land of street lights and the neighborhood watch.

That morning she had been forced to take the long way around the park because the local high school was using the baseball diamond for their playoffs. She didn't remember that until she had stepped on a bat, the cool metal rolling on the packed dirt of the baseline between first and second.

Her head struck the ground and she was stunned for a moment.

That moment, she knew, had cost her everything.

* * *

I woke with a start, gasping for breath and drenched in sweat that had nothing to do with the still intense heat or the cardio workout that Harm had put me through. Harm lay beside me, sleeping peacefully, and I couldn't help but feel a jab of anger at the fact that he was sleeping like a baby while I was quaking and quivering, teetering on the edge of a full-on panic attack. Years of living on carriers and bases had trained Harm to sleep through pretty much anything, though he was usually pretty good at waking up when I had nightmares. It was like he knew that I needed him and sleep be damned. But, apparently our connection was down for the evening.

Both Harm and I had experience with precognitive dreams, though, seeing as what we did for a living was based largely on physical evidence, neither one of us tended to put much stock in our little flashes of the paranormal. Harm had experienced more than his share of odd moments while we were searching for his father, especially when we were on the carrier that his father had flown off of before he was transferred to the Ticonderoga. My 'psychic flashes', as Harm and I had taken to jokingly calling our little _Miss Cleo_ moments, were usually centered around cases, though, which caused me more than a little stress considering the fact that most of the cases that harm and I worked were murder investigations and seeing the crime through the eyes of the victim–or, worse, the eyes of the killer–was bar none the most vile and nerve-wracking thing that I have ever experienced.

The biggest problem was, however, that, if they came–which did don't always–I usually didn't start getting the dreams until nearer to the end of the investigation, not right at the beginning.

So the fact that this was happening now was either a really, really bad sign, or it was a good sign with the drawback of another rape and possible murder within the next few hours.

"Shit," I groaned as I dragged myself out of bed. I pulled on Harm's shirt and grabbed my cell phone and my notebook from my purse before heading into the bathroom. I searched through my notebook until I found the card that Agent Scully had haded me at the base. Her number was on the front, her partner's on the back. I found it interesting that she only had a cell number listed while he had a cell and an office number listed. I figured it was just because Scully was a doctor and didn't spend enough time in her office to warrant the printing of the number. But that didn't matter because they wouldn't be anywhere near their offices at the moment.

I opted for Mulder, getting the feeling that he would be more likely to respond to my dream without scorn than his scientist of a partner was. Not to mention that, despite our talk earlier, I still didn't feel that comfortable around Dana Scully.

Two rings later the phone was answered. "Mulder." He didn't even sound like he had been pulled from sleep.

"Agent Mulder, it's Commander Meg Austin. We met earlier today," I said, my arm wrapped around my stomach that was clenching painfully as my memory flashed over the contents of my dream.

"Yes, I remember. I also remember that we already covered the name thing," Mulder said. I could hear a smile in his voice. That was good. So many times calling someone in the middle of the night, especially when you barely know them or don't know them at all, will put you in their bad books for the rest of eternity.

"Right," I said, smiling weakly. "Sorry. Anyway, _Mulder_, Commander Rabb and I have been assigned to protect the Navy's interests in the case that you and Agent Scully are working."

"I'm aware of that, and I'm also aware of the fact that you didn't call me at three in the morning to tell me that we're going to be working on a case in a somewhat parallel fashion."

I smiled. "You're right. I actually called with a potential lead that's not exactly in keeping with what most investigators would run with."

"I'm not most investigators," Mulder said. I could practically hear him salavating at the thought of there being a supernatural edge to an otherwise sickening case of the human condition at it's very worst. "Tell me what you've got. Wait, no, we should do this in person, not over the phone," he said, almost to himself. Then, to me again, he said, "Where are you now? On the base?"

Cringing, I sighed. "No, I'm not on the base right now. Um... how well do you know the area?"

"I've got a map," Mulder offered.

"Okay. There's a coffee shop not far from where I am right now. We can meet there," I said. I didn't want to wake Harm and explaining to Mulder about our relationship might not be so tough but there was no way I was telling anyone without Harm's full agreement. I gave Mulder directions and we agreed to meet there in half an hour. After we hung up I took a quick shower, got dressed in the dress I had worn earlier topped with Harm's shirt that was both practical and comforting. I wrote out a note for Harm to let him know where I was going and I tenderly kissed him goodbye before grabbing my purse and the key to the room and heading out.

When Mulder arrived I had already finished a cup of tea and was about to order another one. He ordered a coffee before joining me at the booth in the back of the coffee shop that I had taken because it was far enough away from the counter that the clearly exhausted waitress wouldn't listen to our conversation. It was bad enough if they listened in on a murder investigation in the middle of the day, but in the middle of the night it's more likely that they'll call the cops on a couple of potential murderers rather than assume that we're investigating the crime.

"So, why aren't you staying on the base? I thought you had a room at the VOQ," Mulder said conversationally as he dumped liberal amounts of cream and sugar in his small cup of coffee.

"I do," I said, not offering any further explanation. I clasped my hands together when I realized that I was still wearing my engagement ring, but I quickly realized that it didn't matter if Mulder knew I was engaged.

For all he knew I was involved with some guy in San Diego and had opted to stay with him for the night rather than bunking up at the base. It was oddly freeing, wearing my ring in front of someone other than Harm. The only person who had seen me wearing the ring on my finger was Gram, Harm's grandmother. Several people had noticed it hanging around my neck, but, as my mother had recently died, I'm pretty sure a lot of them assume that it's her engagement ring. That ring, however, was safely locked in my jewelry box in my apartment, waiting for the day that I can pass it along to my own children, whether to use to propose with or just for a family heirloom.

I waited until the waitress had given up on trying to listen in on our conversation, going back into the kitchen that was heavily at work making baked goods for the morning rush, and then I said, "I know that your department deals with cases that are less than normal."

Mulder snorted softly. I realized that what I had said was probably the understatement of the century, so I moved on quickly, not allowing my fair complexion time to color with the slight embarrassment I was feeling at that moment.

"And I know that you have a reputation for going after leads that aren't always as conventional as other agents would like."

"If you called me out at three in the morning to tell me not to screw around you've wasted both of our time," Mulder said.

"I didn't call you out here for that," I promised. I dragged my fingers through my hair and sighed heavily. "Look, off the record and on pain of castration and slow dismemberment should this become one of your X-Files, in the past I have a history of precognitive dreams. And I wouldn't even be bringing this up–it's not something I like to talk about–but before I called you..."

"You saw the next victim?" Mulder asked, his voice lowered.

"I did," I nodded gravely. "At least, I think I did. Sometimes these thing just turn out to be brought on by what I've already seen or read or whatever, but this... it felt really real."

Mulder nodded, motioning for me to elaborate.

I recounted the dream, alarming detail for alarming detail, and then I said, "There's a park, like the one I saw in my dream, not far from the base. I can't remember what it's called... Harm might know... growing up here and all. Anyway, I think... I think that you should check it out."

"You got a weapon?" Mulder asked, pulling out his wallet and throwing down some bills to cover our drinks.

"Didn't really count on my tagging along," I admitted.

"I need your memories to find the baseball diamond," Mulder said as we headed out to his car. He popped the trunk and spun the dials on a lock box, opening it up and pulling out an FBI edition SIG Sauer P22OS. He haded the gun to me and I tested the weight. "You know how to use that?" he asked.

"Before I joined the JAG corps I trained as a weapons specialist," I said as I checked the gun over as best I could in the low light of the coffee shop's parking lot. It was in good working order, was obviously cleaned regularly and thoroughly, and had been fired more than once but not recently. "You always go off like this without your partner?" I asked as we got in his Taurus. 

"All the time. Drives her crazy," Mulder said as he threw the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

We drove for a minute before Mulder realized that he didn't know where he was going. "There's a map in the glove box. See if you can find the park there. If you can't call your partner."

As much as I hated keeping things from Harm I had no intention of calling him and telling him that I was going after a serial rapist with a man I had known for all of ten hours and had spoken to for maybe an hour total since we met. Harm would insist that I either come back to the hotel or wait for him to come to me. Which, honestly, didn't sound wholly unappealing, except I knew that we didn't have the time to wait for Harm to get from the hotel to the coffee shop on foot and I had the car. I reached for the map and started scanning the area around the base. Thankfully it was a detailed map and I found the park a minute later. I told Mulder where to go and he went forty over the speed limit in the light traffic.

"Don't you think you're going a little fast?" I asked, looking over my shoulder to see if there were any cops following us.

"We're in pursuit of a violent offender, correct?" Mulder asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Yes," I said.

"Then it's official Bureau business," Mulder said.

I wrapped my fingers around the arm rests and hung on tight, praying that this actually turned out to be something and not just more proof that my imagination has a tendency to take an idea and run with it.

* * *

The sun was rising as I pulled the car back into the parking space allotted for us at the hotel. It had taken much longer than anticipated to cover all the ground, and it turned out there were two baseball diamonds on opposite corners of the park and, as I hadn't seen any real landmarks, I didn't even know which one we were looking for, so we checked both thoroughly.

Even before I slipped the cardkey in the door I knew Harm was awake. I was exhausted, aching, and emotionally strung out. Mulder and I had spent three hours combing the park and finding nothing to indicate that my dream had come true. That didn't mean that it wouldn't, as Mulder had pointed out on the ride back to the coffee shop to pick up my car. He was going to check with the Parks Board to see if the baseball

diamond was rented out by a high school league for their playoffs and, if it was, when the first day was scheduled.

While we scoured the park Mulder had told me about the other crime scenes and the potential clues that Scully had found during her autopsy that afternoon. He told me about how most of the victims had retreated into themselves completely, unable to do anything other than waste away in fear. He recounted the conversation he had had with the first victim, the only woman who wasn't essentially catatonic, and he told me how she had told him, with horrifying clarity, everything this monster had done to her.

Mulder had promised to keep me out of it, he had made it clear that he wasn't just going to sit on the information–or potential information–that I had offered him. I agreed, knowing that any lead would be welcome in this case, but I did make him swear that he wouldn't tell anyone where he got the information.

"Where have you been?" Harm asked, clearly more concerned than angry. He wrapped his arms around me and I sank into his embrace willingly, needing to find the safety zone that I always found in his arms.

"I'll explain in a minute," I said, burrowing deeper into his arms. Harm didn't argue, probably realizing that I was in no state to fight back and that pushing would only make me clam up.

After a few minutes I took Harm's hand and led him to the bed. We curled up together and I rested my head on his chest, my ear over his heart. I explained everything, from the nightmare to every step taken in the park, and I felt Harm's arms tighten around me with each sentence I uttered. He waited until I was finished and, instead of getting angry at me for not waking him up and letting him know what was going on, he just asked if I was alright.

"I'm okay. Just a little shaken," I admitted. I lifted my head off his chest and looked into his eyes. "Harm, I want to start planning our wedding. I mean, really planning. Setting a date, sending out invitations, freaking out over caterers and floral arrangements. I don't want to wait any more."

Almost two years of talking, subtle innuendos and hinting at deeper feelings that neither one of us was ready to admit to outright, we shared our first kiss. We fumbled through the next six months, trying to date while hiding from all the people we loved. We spent our one year anniversary up at Sarah Rabb's farm where Harm proposed in front of the one person who knew that we were more than just partners. And now, almost four months later, we were still as closeted as we had been when we were hiding our feelings from each other as well as everyone else. Only now there was more to feel guilty about.

_TBC..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry about the massive delay on this, and all my other stories. Writers block is a bitch, and my personal life hasn't been making things much easier for me. Unfortunately I don't see my situation getting any better anytime soon (my writers block is going away but my personal life is just getting worse and worse) so updates will probably be hard to come by. Six days ago my grandfather slipped into a coma after yelling at the hospital staff and everyone around him for almost five months. Adding to the already shitty day, only two hours after my grandmother called me to let me know about my grandfather she called again to tell me that her housekeeper had taken her dog, Sheba, for a walk and that Sheba had gotten lost. I spent the last week searching the forest that the housekeeper lost Sheba in, but the area is known for bears and cougars, not to mention the insanity that is highway traffic, so it's pretty much a given that Sheba isn't coming home. On top of all this I am on medication that helps me sleep 'cause I've been suffering from insomnia since I was about 15, and my 'scrip ran out almost two weeks ago but I haven't had the chance to get a refill and so my body is essentially 'drying out' with all the fun sideaffects that come with it. Shaking, headaches, nausea, irritablity, et cetera... the whole nine yards. Writing has always been an escape for me, though, so maybe with all the crap I'm dealing with I'll be able to move onward and upward in my stories.**

**In the words of Paris Geller from Gilmore Girls _"(Journalism) is an art. Great art can only be made under oppression..."_**

**Okay, now it's time to try out that 'onward and upward' thing I was talking about earlier...**

* * *

I didn't get the chance to get anymore actual sleep after returning from the fruitless excursion brought on by my dreams, but Harm was kind enough to run out and get some high-quality coffee while I showered and tried to wake myself up a little bit. I was still in the shower when Harm returned and he came into the bathroom and sat on the countertop until I was done. That, alone, was a testament to how worried about me he was. Since we were forced to spend so much time apart neither one of us was willing to let something as simple as a morning shower separate us further. The only times I seemed to bathe on my own anymore were the nights we were on assignment or the scant few nights while we're at home when work forces us to remain physically separate—usually if we've been assigned to opposite sides of a case. 

Harm held out a towel and a cup of coffee. I took the coffee eagerly, leaving the towel in his hands until I had taken several sips of the beverage. It was strong and hot, heavily sugared but without cream. Just the way I like it.

Slightly more energized I dried off and got dressed while Harm took his shower. We packed up our things, reluctant to go back to the rooms we had been provided with on the base, and I checked out while Harm loaded our things into the car.

After stopping at the base only long enough to drop off our things and check to see if any messages had been left for us in the office, Harm and I headed out to the FBI's field station where we were greeted by an angry Scully and a determined Mulder.

"Damn it, Mulder, one of these days you're going to get yourself killed when you go running off because one of these anonymous tips you always seem to get," Scully said angrily. She dragged her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath and then said, "Did you at least get a name from your source? Something we can check out—something tangible that we can verify and show to the higher ups? They're already bugging our office. Do you really want them tapping our phones, too?"

I tensed up and Harm put a hand on the small of my back, urging me to either relax or come forward, and whichever option I chose, to do it quick. I had two options. Leave Mulder to his partner's obvious anger, or risk getting Scully angry at me and making her think I'm insane to top it off.

Choosing the chicken's way out, I said nothing, which turned out to be fine because Mulder handed the situation with the grace of someone who was, if not used to, then artful in dealing with the wrath of Dana Scully.

"Look, Scully, I went out for a run last night and I met up with Meg. We went to grab some coffee and I got a call with a tip. She joined me and we checked out the park. We were both armed and, as you can see, we're both very much alive," Mulder said. I would have preferred he left me out of it completely, but I could see why he said what he did. Strength in number and all that.

Of course, he was altering the truth greatly, almost to the point of outright lying, but Scully didn't seem to catch that, and if she did she didn't let it on. I'm pretty sure that she didn't catch it, though, because she didn't seem like she was in the most magnanimous of moods.

Scully turned to me and raised her eyebrow questioningly and, unable to verbally lie, I simply nodded my head. That seemed to be enough to placate Scully and she sighed heavily, silently following Harm, Mulder, and myself, into the building where we were promptly checked for credentials and then directed to an elevator.

Once we got to the appropriate floor Scully motioned for Harm to follow her aside. I could hear everything they were saying from the desk Mulder told me to sit at and I felt incredibly guilty for putting Harm in the situation he was in.

"Harm, we've known each other for a long time and I know you won't lie to me," Scully said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "How well do you really know your partner?"

"What do you mean?" Harm frowned.

"I mean that I find it odd that she was out in the middle of the night when the base locks down at midnight while night flight ops are running unless dispensation is given," Scully hissed.

Harm and I both tensed up, but Harm reacted before I could jump in and explain everything away with the truth, which was my intent. I really suck at the whole lying thing. "Dana, stay out of this," Harm said firmly. "I'm serious. Leave Meg alone," he said, his voice dangerously low.

"Harm, I just think that there are things she isn't sharing," Scully insisted.

This time I reacted before Harm could. I got up and grabbed her arm, pulling her into the break room. Harm followed us, as did Mulder who looked torn between defending his partner and allowing me to keep his partner away from him, and the door was closed and Harm leaned back against it to ensure that no one came in. "Look, Agent Scully, I made it clear to you that I worry about my partner, and I'm sure that you feel the same concern for Agent Mulder, but if you pursue this… this line of questioning against me… my career, and Harm's, will be over."

It only took Scully a second to figure out what I meant.

"How long?" she asked.

She had figured out that Harm and I had crossed the invisible but very real line between partners and something more. I had to give her credit for that. The people we work with day in and day out, all investigators who are highly skilled at reading people, still haven't caught on.

"Sixteen months," I replied.

"We're engaged," Harm put in.

"I wondered about the rock," Mulder said. I had put my ring on as soon as we left the base and I had forgotten to take it off when I went to meet Mulder, but he hadn't said anything so I thought he hadn't noticed. Obviously he had. I once again made a mental note about telling the Admiral. Telling him ourselves would make things much easier for us than we would have it if someone caught us when we made one of the slip-ups that were becoming more and more common of late and scuttlebutt got back to the Admiral about our extra-curricular activities.

Scully shot her partner an icy glare and he held up his hands innocently, backing away from the conversation.

Harm moved a little closer to me and then said, "We needed some time alone so we got a hotel away from the base for the night."

Scully took a moment to absorb this information and then she turned to Harm, her expression a mask that, apparently, Harm and Mulder could both see through. They both looked a little scared. There was obviously more to Dana Scully than I had originally thought.

"What the hell are you thinking, Harm? Do you think anyone's going to care that you're in love? No. You're going to get Court Marshalled and you're going to lose your career," Scully said, her tone low and dangerous. "Then what are you going to do? This won't be like going from flying to being a lawyer. You'll be kicked out of the Navy completely. And the Navy is all you've ever known."

"Dana, back off," Harm said firmly. I could see he was getting angry and, truth be told, so was I. But he, as the old friend, could do something about it, whereas I had my hands tied. If I stood up against Scully I risked pissing her off further and, though I doubted she was the type to stoop to something so petty, I couldn't risk her going to someone like the SecNav with details about my relationship with Harm. "Meg and I both knew the risks going into this. We're handling it."

I wasn't so sure that was the truth, especially since we had arrived in San Diego, but I knew that we needed to present a united front. The truth was that one of the main reasons we had kept our relationship a secret for so long was that neither one of us could think of a way that we could get married and still work together. Logically we knew that one of us could get a transfer to another billet in Washington or Virginia—Harm had been fielding offers from several Senators and either one of us could find a staff Judge Advocate position somewhere close to home—or one of us could go into private practise, either join an existing firm—there were always offers coming in—or start one of our own, probably in DC since that's heaven for lawyers, but we both still had this naïve glimmer of hope that we could work it out so that neither one of us had to leave JAG.

"Is that so?" Scully asked. "Then why the secrecy?"

"I said we are handing it," Harm said firmly. I hated that he was in the position he was in—defending our relationship to someone who clearly meant a lot to him. "Right now we're just waiting for our CO to get back to us on what he can do to keep us both at JAG."

This was a boldfaced lie, and I was almost positive I cringed when he uttered the words. Harm wasn't even bending the truth anymore. He was lying. He had, in the entire time I had known him, never lied to anyone he cared about.

It as obvious that this was just going to get uglier, so I broke in with an abrupt change of subject.

"Agent Scully, you should probably know that the tip that Mulder got early this morning didn't come from some anonymous source. It came from me," I said. "Though I would prefer if no one else were to find out about that fact," I added, hoping that she would be as amenable to keeping my secret as her partner was.

"Explain," Scully said. Apparently this new revelation was enough to get her mind off of charges of fraternization, which was a good thing, but it did put me on the spot, which I hadn't thought of when I broke in to the conversation—argument—between her and Harm.

I told her about my dream, and Harm backed me up with some examples from the past where our dreams and 'visions' had led to a huge break in a case we were working. Mulder confirmed that I had called him and that we had met for coffee before going to the park, and I noticed that he didn't apologize for lying to Scully earlier. "I promised Meg I wouldn't tell anyone where I got the tip," was all Mulder said that could possibly be construed as an apology. Scully seemed to find that acceptable, though, so I got the impression that a promise from Mulder was about as iron-clad as a promise from Harm.

"How certain are you that your 'vision' wasn't just a vivid dream brought on by exposure to the case files? Maybe in combination with spicy food," Scully questioned.

"I'm positive that this is more than just a dream about case files," I said with a certainty that I wasn't sure I truly felt. "And I didn't have any spicy food yesterday—not that it would have mattered if I had. I was raised on spicy food and it's never affected me."

"Dana, you know how I feel about things that can't be proven. But Meg has… abilities… that I can't explain. Haven't you ever seen something that you can't explain with your science and logic?" Harm asked.

Mulder chuckled loudly and I bit back a smile. I'd hard enough stories about the X-Files to know that Scully was hardly a stranger to things that went beyond conventional explanation.

"Fine. I'll go along with this—for now. But we keep this quiet until we have hard evidence to give to the SAC," Scully said. It was clear she wasn't pleased, but at least she wasn't going to have me committed.

Yet.

"Fine by me," I said because, honestly, I didn't want to have to try to explain myself to people who were probably less inclined to give my particular brand of weirdness the benefit of the doubt.

Scully checked her watch. "I have to get to the lab to pick up the results from yesterday. Mulder, I believe you have a profile to hand in."

"Already copied and collated," Mulder nodded, holding up the thick file that he held in his hand. Last night he had said that he didn't have a clear picture on the UNSUB's specifics yet, yet this morning he had everything taken care of. I idly wondered if Special Agent Fox Mulder ever slept.

Scully nodded and shot Harm a look before turning to Mulder. "Stay out of trouble," she said before leaving the room.

Mulder sighed and shook his head. "You'd think I go out of my way to find trouble," he said, rolling his eyes.

"The way I hear it, you do," I pointed out. Mulder frowned but didn't fight me on the point.

The briefing was about to start, and people were beginning to file into the conference room down the hall. "I should get back to the base. I figured I'd check the gate records," Harm said.

"Good idea. Maybe there's a common denominator," I said, flashing Harm a smile.

"What are you doing?" Mulder frowned.

I had assumed that Mulder would know about the logs. FBI agents train at Quantico and the Marines have the same regulations for base security as the Navy. "The Navy requires that the guards at the gate keep a record of who enters and exits the base and at what time. You and Agent Scully had to fill out a similar log for non-military visitors when you were there yesterday," I explained. "If there are any names that pop up for all of the attacks…"

"You've narrowed the list of potential suspects," Mulder nodded. "I don't think this guy is military, though. For the record."

"The SecNav will be glad to hear it," Harm said. He reached over and gently brushed his fingers over my hand before turning to leave. It was a subtle farewell that we had perfected since we got together. Not as good as a goodbye kiss, but it kept us within regulations. "Make sure you call Chegwidden after the briefing. He's probably getting chewed out by the SecNav on an hourly basis. It might be nice for him to have something to share the next time he gets a call."

"You're the senior investigator. You should be making the call," I protested. Harm knew I hated dealing with the Admiral when he was getting heat from the higher-ups.

"But I won't be at the briefing," Harm said, flashing me one of his knee-melting smiles before leaving the room. I scowled. Sometimes Harm can be so infuriating. I love him, but sometimes I really want to wring his neck.

"Sounds like your CO is as bad as my AD," Mulder said with a hint of a smile gracing his pouty lips.

I shook my head. "Admiral Chegwidden is great. But when he starts getting pushed around by politicians he tends to start acting like a cornered animal. His first instinct is to attack anyone that is unlucky enough to be around him," I said as I went about making a cup of tea, having downed so much coffee that I felt jittery. "Overall, though, he's one of the best CO's there is. I'm going to ask him to give me away when Harm and I get married."

"I can't imagine asking Skinner to actually be involved in my wedding," Mulder chuckled, shaking his head at the thought. "Sounds like you Navy lawyers are a tight bunch."

"It's like this huge, dysfunctional family," I said with a smile. "Harm, the Admiral, and Bud—Lieutenant Roberts, another lawyer we work with—go out for drinks all the time. Harm and I are Bud's son's godparents, and Bud and his wife, Harriet—she's the office manager at JAG—named little AJ after the Admiral who delivered little AJ on the floor in his office."

"AJ? What's it stand for?" Mulder asked.

"Albert Jethro, but both of them are just 'AJ'," I said with a smile. I felt a twinge of pain in my heart. "This is the first year that Harm and I are both away from DC for little AJ's birthday. We always throw a big party at the Admiral's house 'cause he lives right between a huge park and the forest. This year Bud and Harriet rented a bunch of horses so we could all go riding 'cause AJ's new thing is 'horsies'. He likes how they can go 'neigh with the hay'," I said with a warm smile.

"I'm sorry you're going to miss all that," Mulder said as we headed for the conference room.

"Me too," I said softly. "But it's the nature of the job, right?"

"Sad but true," Mulder nodded as he held the door open for me.

The conference room was set up efficiently. One long table with chairs all around it, maps tacked up along one wall, pins sticking out of it showing the attacks in red along with several yellow pins that I assumed were other attacks in the area that may be related but they couldn't confirm. Along the opposite wall crime scene photos were pinned up in chronological order, the first victim, Belinda Arlette Greisemer, at the far left end of the wall, followed by Rosabella Brenna Cowell, then Jia Vega Chan-Knowles, then finally, Akemi Circe Turner, the only woman of all the known victims that hadn't survived her attack.

Four women who would had been violated in the worst way by another human being, including one who had been violated the same way, but had fought back harder than the others and had ended up losing her life along with all the other things that her attacker had stolen from her.

I shuddered, trying to reconcile the crime scene photographs, the injury catalogues, and the evidence that had been collected with my dream that I was becoming more and more certain was going to come true in the very near future if something wasn't done to prevent it.

"You okay?" Mulder asked as we took our seats.

"I've worked on four rape cases in my career. It hasn't gotten any easier," I admitted softly. Harm would have known the source of my discomfort immediately and wouldn't have made me voice my problem, but Mulder wasn't Harm. However I did suspect that he knew the cause of my tension and somewhere in his psychology background he had been informed that talking about what bothers you is a good way to start healing. Perfectly sound advice, really, unless what is bothering you is something that bothers everyone in the world who has a soul and a basic comprehension of what it means for someone to be raped.

"It never does," Mulder said, that admission telling me that he had worked more rape cases than he cared to count.

The briefing started by introductions being made, since the task force had just doubled in size now that Harm, Mulder, Scully, and I were involved in the investigation. Other than Mulder and myself there were four other people in the room. SAC Angela Cole of the FBI who was in charge of the task force. Detective Davis Janz and his partner Elsie Trainer from the San Diego PD. And, finally, ASAC Eric Maguire, also FBI. It was a small task force, only having eight people—including Harm and Scully—making it up, but I knew part of that was because rape cases are so personal that it's easier for the victims to develop a rapport with those involved if there are fewer, not to mention there's less chance of leaks when there area limited number of people privy to the innermost workings of the task force.

"Where are… Special Agent Dana Scully and Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr?" ASAC Maguire asked, pronouncing 'Dana' 'Daa-nuh' and 'Harmon' 'Herr-moon'.

"Special Agent Dana Scully," Mulder said, emphasizing 'Dana', "is at the lab picking up the results from the autopsy on Lesedi Turner. And Commander Harmon Rabb," he continued, correcting the pronunciation of Harm's name, "had to get back to the base to follow up on a potential lead concerning the theory that the UNSUB is with the military in some capacity."

"What lead is that?" Janz asked.

Mulder turned his chair slightly so that he was facing me more directly and I let out an inaudible sigh. "Any person, military or not, who enters and exits the base has to sign a log. Commander Rabb is collecting the logs for the dates of the attacks to see if there are any names that pop up every time," I said. My explanation was received by thoughtful nods.

"Have any of the victims remembered anything?" Janz asked.

"Not that they're admitting," SAC Cole replied. "But it is entirely possible that the trauma is just too fresh for the memories to come out, let alone for the victims to talk about."

That was one of the things that I hated about my job. People no longer had names. They were victims, defendants, witnesses, attorneys, and collateral damage. Once you found yourself involved in a case, especially one as emotional as a rape case—or, worse, a serial rape case—everyone lost their identities and were slid into neat little categories that kept human emotion from creeping through the tense façades that we were all forced to develop and maintain.

"What about a connection between the victims?" Maguire asked. "Have we been able to pin anything down there?"

Elise Trainer shook her head sadly. "Greisemer is a teacher at some private school; Cowell is a lawyer with a small firm that handles small civil disputes; Chan-Knowles is a student at Michigan State who came down for her boyfriend's sister's wedding, and Tuner was a pastry chef at one of those places that would cost me two car payments for an appetiser. They don't run in the same circles, haven't been to any of the same restaurants or stores recently, and, as far as they can remember, they've never seen each other before in their lives. Greisemer is married, Cowell is single, Chan-Knowles has a boyfriend that she has been with for almost five years, and Tuner was single but had a teenaged daughter from a past marriage. None of them are the same age—they range from twenty to forty-eight. Their races are different, and religion is not a commonality, either, since Greisemer is Catholic, Cowell is agnostic, Chan-Knowles is Buddhist, and Turner was atheist according to her daughter, Serena. None of them look anything alike, which is odd because that is usually a common marker for sickos like this. They're all very different women, but no so different as to make that the common denominator."

"Is it possible he's choosing these women at random?" Maguire suggested.

"I doubt it," Mulder said. "Something about these women draws him in. The brutality of the attacks, especially on Akemi Turner, suggests that they remind him of someone in his past that hurt him, physically—probably sexually—and he is now able to get his revenge, possibly. He's been incapable of this before due to incarceration or because he lacked the physical strength required to overpower theses women without drugging them. He has probably started building muscle tone as a way to protect himself from further harm from the woman or women in his past, but somewhere along the line it became an asset to his revenge. The fact that he redresses them after he's finished suggests that he cares for them, maybe even loves them, despite the perceived wrong they perpetrated against him. Leaving them in areas that are public during the day but are relatively empty at night—the playground, the mall parking lot, the picnic area, the beach—implies that he wants them to be found before the elements can get to these women, which is another sign that he cares for them. If he didn't care for these women in some way, no matter how obscure, he wouldn't make it so easy for them to be found."

"Do you think he's attacked women before Belinda Greisemer?" I asked.

"Undoubtedly. Serials are not made overnight. While the pathology is quite different depending on what the UNSUB does, that is always the truth. He has attacked women before. Probably not as viciously. It likely started out as a penchant for dominance during sex that escalated," Mulder said. "Maybe he met a woman who didn't want to be rough, at least not to the extent that he does, and she fought him on it, making things more exciting for him. Rape would be the ultimate sign of dominance for him. Once he achieved that high… anything else just wouldn't get the job done."

"Meaning he needs a woman to be completely powerless to get it up?" Maguire asked.

"That would be the most basic interpretation of the profile, yes," Mulder said. I could tell he wasn't impressed with the locals, and, to be perfectly honest, neither was I. "It is a lot more complicated than that, though."

"Obviously," Maguire said quickly, as if that would help cover for his complete and utter misunderstanding of what Mulder was trying convey.

"What about the markings? Any clue what the hell they mean?" Janz asked.

"What markings?" I asked.

"Each woman had a symbol etched into her skin," Mulder said. I frowned. Nowhere in any of the files had there been note of any markings that weren't consistent with the rape itself. "That fact wasn't in the files you received, was it?" he asked. I shook my head. "Damnit," he said, turning toward the rest of the group with a look a fury on his usually passive face. "How the hell do you expect this task force to find this guy if you don't share crucial details with everyone involved?" he demanded.

"We didn't feel it was prudent to share _every_ detail with the Commanders, Agent Mulder, simply because we need to keep details like that away from the press to keep the risk of copy-cats coming out of the woodwork," Cole replied coolly.

Suddenly I was grateful that Harm wasn't at the briefing. He wouldn't be able to remain as calm as I had been. Even if Harm managed to keep his cool in the room, once he got out he would call Admiral Chegwidden and I knew that once the Admiral found out about the FBI's tactics—and I knew that he would find out because there was no way I was going to cover their suit-clad asses—SAC Cole and her team would be keelhauled, and not in the verbal-only definition of the term.

Normally I would have been able to remain calm in situations that ended up with others insulting me, but not this time. "Commander Rabb and I were brought in specifically to keep the press from catching any of the details of this case—we were only asked to aid in the actual investigation as an afterthought. But we are involved, which means that Commander Rabb and myself require all information that has been gathered thus far. The fact that we're both trained investigators as well as attorneys and are required to keep secret the details of cases we work should only be another reason for you to trust us, Agent Cole," I said, praying that I was able to keep my voice level instead of letting on the fury that was taking over my very being. "What else have you kept back because you didn't feel it was 'prudent to share _every_ detail' with us? How many clues have we overlooked already because you didn't fully disclose the facts of the investigation before we arrived?" I demanded.

Silence was the only response I got to my question.

* * *

Since it's used so often on both JAG and NCIS it bothered me that I didn't know exactly what KEELHAUL meant.It seems prettybasic, but I wanted to check it out to make sure I was using the term correctly becauseso many authors don't and it drives me crazy. So, curtesy of Merrium-Webster's online dictionary, I found this: 

Main Entry: **keel·haul**

Pronunciation: -"hol  
Function: _transitive verb_  
Etymology: Dutch _kielhalen, _from _kiel _keel + _halen _to haul  
**1** to haul under the keel of a ship as punishment or torture  
**2** to rebuke severely


End file.
